Welfare

‘Fresh approach’ needed to integrate health and employment services, review finds

Employment and health services for individuals suffering from obesity and drug and alcohol addiction should be delivered using a joint approach, a major new review from Professor Dame Carol Black has recommended.

Professor Black’s review rejected proposals for jobseekers to have their benefits stopped if they refuse treatment for addiction or severe obesity. It cautioned that addicts currently find it difficult to get jobs because of a lack of means in the benefits system to identify or support addicts and stigma from employers.

In fact, the review found that stopping benefits would make it more likely that claimants would hide their addiction, and many health professionals expressed concerns about the legality, morality and cost-effectiveness of the proposals.

Instead, Dame Carol said: “We are clear that a fresh approach is needed, one that brings together health, social, and employment agencies in new collaborative ways, personalised to the circumstances of each individual.”

Recommendations for this approach included encouraging recovering addicts to take part in work or volunteering as part of a rehabilitation programme, and trialling placing Jobcentre Plus staff in treatment centres.

Dame Carol also found that many benefits claimants only have one health condition recorded, which is unlikely to mention addiction. She therefore urged the government to review ways in which better health information could be provided to Jobcentre Plus in support of a claim.

This should then be followed by a trial of a requirement for benefits claimants to attend structured discussions of their healthcare problems, and the use of peer mentors to support jobseekers who are dealing with addiction.

Ultimately, Dame Carol recommended developing a universal Jobcentre drug and alcohol offer, as well as new guidance and discretionary funding to support employers in recruiting people with known drug and alcohol problems.

Her recommendations came just a month after a Work and Pensions Committee report warned that plans for Jobcentres to take on more clients with complex health conditions are “frontloaded for failure”, with a new approach to the role of work coaches needed instead.

Cllr Izzi Seccombe, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing, expressed disappointment that Dame Carol’s review did not propose “more radical steps” for Jobcentres to work with councils and other local partners.

She called for a reformed system which brought services together and was “locally as well as nationally accountable”.

More research needed

Also in her review, Dame Carol found that it was difficult to tell how much obesity affects people’s prospects of finding work because of a lack of data.

In light of “alarming” predictions of growing obesity rates, she recommended that the government commission research into the extent of the problem, and that Jobcentre Plus developed support for obese claimants.

Penny Mordaunt, the minister for disabled people, health and work, said: “Your success in life shouldn’t be determined by the circumstances of your birth.

“We are committed to helping people break down the barriers they face and secure a good job where they can fulfil their potential.”

She added that the review supported plans already in place to join up employment and health systems.

The government is also planning to devolve the new Work and Health Programme for disabled jobseekers from 2018 in certain areas, but the LGA has recommended devolving it across the country.

(Image c. Rui Vieira from PA Wire)

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